The Line Between

«For you and most of your kind, absolute annihilation," the animal piped cheerfully. «For mine — evolution.»

«I'm not very good with big words," the Tyrannosaurus said apologetically. «If you could… "

«You'll all be gone," the little creature said. «When the asteroid crashes into the Earth, it will raise a vast cloud of dust and debris that will circle the planet for years, cutting off all sunlight. You dinosaurs won't be able to survive the drastic change in the climate — you'll mostly vanish within a couple of generations. Then — just as when the fall of great trees makes room at last for the small ones struggling in their shadow — then we mammals will take our rightful place in the returning sun.» Observing what it took to be a stricken expression on the Tyrannosaurus's yard–wide face, it added, «I'm really sorry. I just thought you should know.»

«And your sort," the Tyrannosaurus ventured, «you will … evolute?»

" Evolve," the creature corrected her. «That means to change over time into something quite different in size or shape, or in your very nature, from what you were originally. My friend Max, for instance — smaller than I am right now — Max is going to evolve into a horse, if you'll believe it. And Louise, who came out of the sea with the rest of us, in the beginning — Louise is planning to go back there and become a whale. A blue whale, I think she said. It'll take millions of years, of course, but she's never in a hurry, Louise. And me — " Here it preened itself as grandly as anyone possibly can in the grasp of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, fifteen feet in the air. «Me, I'm a sort of shrew or something right now, but I'm on my way to being a mammal with just two legs that will write books and fight wars, and won't believe in evolution. How cool is that?»

«And me?» the Tyrannosaurus asked, rather wistfully. «Everything will be changing — everyone will be turning into something else. Don't my relatives and I get to evolve at all?»

«You won't. But there's a bigger picture," the shrew reassured her. «It will take a good while, but some of your kind are going to fly, my dear. Those of your descendants who survive will find their scales turning gradually to feathers; their mighty jaws will in time become a highly adaptable beak, and they'll learn to build nests and sing songs. And hunt bugs.»

«Well," said the Tyrannosaurus. «I can't say I follow all of this, but I guess it's better than being anni … annihil … what you said. But where does this Thursday come into it? What exactly is a Thursday?»

«Thursday — " began the shrew, but found itself at a disadvantage in trying to explain the arbitrary concept of days, weeks, months and years to a beast who understood nothing beyond sunrise and sunset, light and dark, sun and moon. He said finally,

«Thursday will happen three sleeps from now.»

«Oh, three sleeps!» the Tyrannosaurus cried in great relief. «You should have said — I thought it was two! Well, there's plenty of time, then," and she promptly gulped down the shrew in one bite.

Savory, she thought. Nice crunch, too. But then again, there's that hair. They'd be better without the hair.

Turning away, she caught the scent of a nearby triceratops on the wind, and was about to start in that new and tempting direction when she was hit squarely on the back of the neck by the asteroid, blazing from its descent through the atmosphere. As advertised, its impact killed her and wiped out most of the dinosaurs in a very short while, at least by geological standards. The shrew had simply miscalculated the asteroid's arrival time — which is hardly a surprise, as he didn't really have a good grasp on Thursdays, either.

Moral: Gemini, Virgo, Aries or Taurus, knowing our future tends to bore us, just like that poor Tyrannosaurus.

The Fable of the Ostrich

Once upon a time, in a remote corner of Africa, there was a young ostrich who refused to put his head in the sand at the slightest sign of danger. He strolled around unafraid, even when lions were near, cheerfully mocking his parents, his relations, and all his friends, every one of whom believed absolutely that their only safety lay in blind immobility. «It makes you invisible, foolish boy!» his father was forever shouting at him in vain. «You can't see the lion — the lion can't see you! What part of Q..E.D. don't you understand?»

«But the lion always sees us!» the ostrich would retort, equally exasperated. «What do you think happened to Uncle Julius? Cousin Hilda? Cousin Wilbraham? What good did hiding their stupid heads do them?»

«Oh," his father said. «Them. Well.» He looked slightly embarrassed, which is hard for an ostrich. «Yes," he said. «Well, it's obvious, they moved. You mustn't move, not so much as a tail feather, that's half of it right there. Head out of sight and hold still, it's foolproof. Do you think your mother and I would still be here if it weren't foolproof?»